[steveklabnik]

So, 1.1.1.1 is Cloudflare's public DNS resolver. It's the fastest resolver on Earth: https://www.dnsperf.com/#!dns-resolvers It's fast because Cloudflare has 200 data centers all over the globe, and you connect to the nearest one.

Warp is a set of apps that will set your phone (and with this, today, your computer) to use 1.1.1.1 for resolving your DNS. But additionally, it uses the Wireguard protocol to connect, which is a VPN protocol. This hides the contents of your connection from your ISP or network provider. It does mean you're connecting to Cloudflare, and so we've made a bunch of privacy commitments, and gotten external auditing to back those up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22747770

The above is all free. You can pay a small subscription fee to get access to Warp+, which uses Cloudflare's "Argo" product to route your requests faster.

Does that make more sense?

[JackC]

From the original blog post announcing Warp, I would have thought "yes, Warp is a VPN service" was the right answer:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/

My understanding of that blog post is:

* 1.1.1.1 is Cloudflare's DNS resolver.

* Warp is a free VPN service, using the Wireguard protocol, with the exit at your nearest Cloudflare data center.

* Warp+ is a $5/mo. paid tier of the VPN service, with the exit at the Cloudflare data center nearest your destination, which ought to be faster.

* All of these are enabled on mobile via the app called "1.1.1.1".

I don't think "Warp is a set of apps that will set your phone to use 1.1.1.1 for resolving your DNS" is right -- but I could be misunderstanding either the product or Steve's summary ...

[steveklabnik]

Yes, I got the name of the app wrong; it's called "1.1.1.1". I have been using it only since the Warp stuff was added, so in my brain it's called "warp" even though that's not actually correct, sorry.

Warp is a vpn service, but I hesitate to just say "yes" in this case because of the caveats around end-users seeing your IP. Many folks use vpns to attempt to hide information from the site that they use, but this doesn't inherently do that, it hides the information from your internet provider. When this was announced on HN, there was a lot of arguing about that, so I tried to sidestep it by just saying plainly what it does.

[jlgaddis]

So... DNS (via Cloudflare) over Wireguard?

[steveklabnik]

Yes.